Theories of recapitulation arose in the late 18th but came to full bloom in the early 19th century. The common feature of such theories was the idea of a strong relationship between embryonic and species development. Such views were popular especially among the German Naturphilosophen, whose worldviews proved highly conductive to recapitulationist thinking. Species development in this context often implied not historical transformation but a kind of static progression, in a unified and morally meaningful universe. Elaborate and sometimes radical systems arose, leading one Naturphilosoph to ask the rhetorical question, “What are the lower animals but a series of human abortions?”[1]

By Rosa RunhardtIt’s become a platitude that the French live to eat, whereas the English eat to live. Visitors to both regions certainly remark on the French cuisine’s joie de vivre and the English’s plain fare. A look at the history of food, particularly of the aesthetic matters of taste and preference, shows that this impression has existed since the end of the Middle Ages. But why did the French nobleman by the 18th century enjoy a nouvelle cuisine supper menu consisting of countless hors d’oeuvres and delicate sauces, whilst an Englishman of similar standing still preferred to dine on simple roasts from his country grounds? This essay will review Stephen Mennell’s All Manners of Food (1985), which sheds light on the divergences in how gentlemen of these regions preferred, and still prefer, their dinner.